Exhibition curated by Cristina Gârleșteanu
Period: 18-30/11/2025
Location: National Library of Romania/ Bucharest, Romania
Artist: Antonio Pisani
Concept & curatorial approach
The Roots of Humanity is a visual meditation on belonging, continuity, and presence. The exhibition explores the fragile yet enduring bonds between people, animals, land, and memory, focusing on everyday gestures and intergenerational relationships that often go unnoticed in contemporary life.
The curatorial approach was built around slowness and attentiveness. Rather than presenting rural life as nostalgia or spectacle, the exhibition proposed it as a space of quiet knowledge, one shaped by care, repetition, and mutual dependence. The images functioned as fragments of lived experience, inviting viewers not to observe from a distance, but to recognize something familiar within themselves.
My role in the project
My role in The Roots of Humanity spanned from the early conceptual development to the full realization of the exhibition. I worked closely with Antonio and helped shaping the emotional rhythm of the exhibition. Beyond the curatorial concept, I coordinated the production process, exhibition logistics, and installation, while also developing partnerships, communication strategy online and offline and audience engagement elements. The project evolved as a long-term collaboration, grounded in trust, dialogue, and a shared sensitivity toward the subject matter.
Exhibition design & execution
The exhibition design emphasized warmth, tactility, and a sense of continuity. The spatial layout followed a narrative flow rather than a strict chronology, allowing images to resonate with one another across the themes.
Special attention was given to pacing and scale, creating moments of intimacy within a large institutional space and transforming the exhibition space into a place of pause rather than transit.
Alongside the photographic display, the exhibition included a participatory installation inviting visitors to actively contribute to the narrative. A dedicated space was created where the public could leave handwritten notes, memories, or reflections in response to the images. This element was conceived as an extension of the exhibition rather than an add-on, a way to shift the experience from passive viewing to shared presence.
Making of photos
Media & press coverage
The Roots of Humanity received extensive media attention (17 publications), both nationally and internationally. Coverage highlighted the emotional depth of the project, its documentary sensitivity, and the curatorial choice to center quiet, everyday experiences in a contemporary exhibition context.
Articles, interviews, and reviews emphasized the exhibition’s ability to create connection between image and viewer, past and present, personal memory and collective experience.
Credits & partners
Artist: Antonio Pisani
Curator: Cristina Gârleșteanu
Location: National Library of Romania, Bucharest
Institutional Partners: National Museum of the Romanian Peasant, Istituto Italiano di Cultura
Sponsors & Partners: Expert Recycling, Focus Nordic, F64, Panasonic, Azero, Aimee, Premium Fragrances, Cewe, Catleya, Street Photography Magazine